On Perfection
by thearendork
Summary: Anna recalls one of the lessons her father had taught her. One-shot.


Looking up at her father's portrait, Anna remembers the first time she was summoned to his study.

At ten years old, she knew she was smart. Granted, she wasn't as book smart as her older sister Elsa, but she could (sometimes) sit through a lecture and absorb what her tutor was saying. She had a fairly good memory, so she was able to get away with not studying when her tutor gave her a surprise quiz. She never got perfect marks, though-high enough most of the time, like mostly in the 7 to 9 out of 10 range. Her tutor always shook his head, saying she could have gotten everything correctly if she had just applied herself to her studies more, but then again, anything less than perfect never bothered her. She was far from perfect like Elsa. Oh, but she tried—she sat up as straight as she could until her back itched, kept quiet until something piqued her interest and she couldn't hold back her opinions anymore, et cetera, et cetera.

That is, until her tutor decided to get her started with mathematics. She was proud of the fact that she took to languages like a fish to water—at seven years old, she could speak French with a flawless accent. She figured numbers were the same, but with different characters.

Big mistake. It didn't help that her tutor kept losing his patience. The last straw came when her quiz came back with a 5 out of 10 in big, red, bold letters, handed to her by her scowling tutor.

"I don't know what to do with you anymore," he grumbled as he stomped back to his desk. "Never have I taught a more hopeless…"

She tuned him out by then, her eyes filling with tears as the words "hopeless" and "failure" rang in her ears. She numbly went to her room when her tutor dismissed her, curling up on her bed.

She wished Elsa was there with her. Elsa would probably never make funny faces to make her feel better, but she gave the best hugs. Too bad her older sister was holed up in her room, studying whatever it is she needed to become queen someday.

A few hours later, she was snapped out of her uncharacteristic brooding by three sharp raps on her door. "Princess Anna," Gerda said, her voice muffled. "The King would like to see you in his study."

She gulped. The Study (as she had named it in her head) meant serious business. And to her father, studying WAS serious business. She may have gotten most of her features from him—after all, they shared the same copper-colored hair—but his personality was more like Elsa's. Both of them were really into doing things as perfectly as they could.

She mentally calculated the time it took for her to reach The Study—ah, she had a five-minute grace period to come up with a good excuse why she only got 50% of her answers correctly (see, she wasn't as hopeless in mathematics as her tutor had thought!). But by the time she stood at the door, she had nothing.

_Let's just get it over with,_ she sighed inwardly, twisting the doorknob. The hinges of the door sounded unnaturally loud to her ears. Her heart pounding, she marched up to her father's imposing oaken desk.

He wasn't sitting at his desk as she had expected. Rather, he was standing at the window, watching something, his hands clasped behind his back. He had turned around when she opened the door, and she felt his stare boring into her as she made her way to his desk.

"You called for me, Papa?" she asked, her mouth feeling dry.

Her imagination went wild. Flames sprouted from behind her father, his eyes glowing yellow as he grew to, like, ten feet tall. "What is the meaning of this?" he would bellow, shoving the quiz in her face—

"Anna?"

"Huh?"

Instead of a scowl, she was surprised to see her father smiling benignly at her. "Rough day?" he asked, going around his desk to come closer to her. He leaned against it, looking down at her with patient eyes.

"I…yeah. She shuffled her foot against the carpet, which was suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. Somehow, his quietness seemed to unsettle her even more. _Why isn't he mad?_ she wondered.

Reaching at something on his desk, her heart pounded anew as her father handed her the dratted quiz. She took it and lowered her gaze to the floor again. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'll try harder next time, I promise."

"I know you will. That's more important than your marks on this quiz."

Her head whipped up at the unexpected words. "Y-you're not mad?" she gasped in disbelief.

Her father let out a sharp sigh. "No. A little bit disappointed though," he admitted.

"Oh." She thought she had dodged a bullet there.

"I know you can do better, Anna," he went on. "You are a smart girl. But I don't expect perfect marks from you in mathematics if it gives you difficulties. Nobody's perfect."

"Elsa is," she blurted out before she could stop herself. Was it her, or did her father's shoulders slump at her words? He shook his head.

"Not even your sister, darling," he murmured with a sad smile. She frowned in confusion. What did that mean?

But before she could ask, her father went behind his desk and opened a drawer, taking a fresh sheet of parchment. Curious, she watched as he took his inkwell and dipped his quill into it and drew something in the middle. He held it up for her to see.

"What is this?" he asked. Her brow furrowed. Was this a trick question?

"It's…a dot?" she ventured.

"Correct. Does the dot bother you?"

She tilted her head. Where was her father going with this? But she decided to answer honestly. "Not really. I mean, there's still space for stuff. You could probably use it to draw something. I mean, with the dot, you could start drawing a face or—" she cut herself off, conscious she was babbling. That probably wasn't the answer he was expecting, so she'd better quit while she was ahead.

But he smiled, and to her it looked like the sun breaking through storm clouds. "Precisely. Anna," he put the parchment down and went to her, bending down on one knee so they could be at the same level. "You don't need to be perfect. What you need to do is to see the beauty in imperfection. And you did."

"Really?"

"Really."

She couldn't help it—she had promised herself she wouldn't cry, but her father's words completely undid her. She threw her arms around his broad shoulders, burying her face in his neck. "I'll try harder next time, though," she mumbled.

"I know you will. Never give up, even if things are hard." He drew back and wiped the tears from her eyes with his thumbs. "But I have a more important question to ask you."

"Yes?"

He grinned, and she was surprised (He was certainly full of surprises today!) at how boyish he looked. "What do you say we go to the kitchen and raid the pantry for some chocolate? I know for a fact that Gerda just got a fresh supply of chocolates from Corona."

Oh wow, Coronian chocolates were the best. Chocolates. Ever. "Let's go!" she grabbed her father's hand and practically dragged him out of the The Study. She never noticed how she had let go of the quiz as she hugged him, and it lay on the floor, forgotten.

Anna's reminiscing is interrupted by a pair of burly arms snaking around her slender waist—though it probably won't be slender for long. "Whatcha thinking about?" Kristoff murmurs into her ear, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"Oh, just thinking about the pearls of wisdom I'll impart on our little one," she answers, her hands covering his, which rested on her stomach. Kristoff draws back and looks down at her with an eyebrow raised.

"Do tell."

"Well, there was this one time when I was ten years old…"

* * *

_Note:_ _It probably could use a better ending, but I'm fresh out of words. This was inspired by what happened between me and my own father after I got the results of my first failed exam. Thanks, Papa. _


End file.
